Your back-to-back endorsements of Scott Brown and Mitt Romney should forever dispel any accusation that the Cape Cod Times leans left. To the contrary, your newspaper has referenced the ever-changing "intangible" philosophy and vision of Romney and the highly disputed "independence" of Brown as reasons to support their candidacies and election to the highest offices in the land.

If your endorsements were rooted in policy issues, we could accept your decisions as political disagreement and move on. But your attempt to justify your favoritism by citing specific accomplishments of both men should be challenged as it rings hollow. In fact, the same day you endorsed Brown, you ran a front-page article that questioned his claim of moderation. It was a balanced attempt that concluded that his status is, at the very least, debatable.

It's true that Scott Brown did cast his vote for Dodd-Frank and more regulation of Wall Street, but immediately after the bill passed, he worked tirelessly behind the scenes to water down the regulations for big banks and hedge funds.This was widely reported on by several publications including the Boston Globe and is not in dispute. Brown is a darling of Wall Street and has received a plethora of support from big business, including the oil companies that enjoy Brown's continued backing for subsidies.

On his position on women's rights, Brown claims he is pro-choice and has been fighting for women since he was 6 years old, when he defended his mother against an abusive stepfather. This is in direct conflict with his congressional voting record. Brown had three major opportunities to show allegiance with women's rights and failed each time.

He signed onto the Blunt Amendment, which would have allowed employers to make health care decisions for their women employees, and he voted against fair pay. In regard to a woman's right to choose, he has been endorsed by the National Right to Life Committee, which recently sent out mailings across the state supporting Brown. That's because Brown has an 80 percent rating from the group based on his voting record (four out of five key votes for limiting choice).

You mention Brown as a believer of climate change, yet he as one of the most abysmal ratings from the most prominent environmental groups, due largely to his voting to gut the Clean Air Act and his four votes against EPA regulations. This is no surprise for a stalwart backer of the oil industry.

The Cape Cod times wrote a recent editorial praising the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its efforts to regulate the fishing industry, calling its scientists "the best in the world." Yet Scott Brown has repeatedly called for the firing or resignation of the head of NOAA based on his faulty assertions that the agency's policies hurt fishermen by placing quotas on catches.

Your endorsement of Brown is one thing, but to publish an essay by a former media strategist and lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute ("Massachusetts needs Brown's voice," Oct. 28) was a poor decision. The writer, Frank Tivnan, erroneously promoted Brown as an "independent voice," similar to the Cape Cod Times endorsement.

To perceive Mitt Romney as anything but a patronizing and grossly inauthentic politician driven by ambition would be fantasy. He has shown time and again that he has no backbone when it comes to standing firm for important issues and has contradicted his own statements to the point of embarrassment.

In his Massachusetts governorship, Romney vetoed more than 800 bills, most of which were overridden by the state Legislature. That's not bipartisanship, as he often brags. In his last two years as governor, he set his sights on the presidency and changed his position on abortion to fit the Republican party's more right-wing philosophy. He also flipped and flopped on renewable energy (climate change) and stem cell research and made no investments in either when doing so would have created thousands of jobs. Massachusetts went from 36th to 47th in job creation during his term.

We cannot subscribe to the Times' staunch endorsements based on the intangible philosophy of Mitt Romney and the loosely defined independent voice of Scott Brown. We don't need abstracts when we have the facts. Unfortunately, your political perspective also calls into question our subscription to your newspaper.